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Chapter XIX

T

WO or three days and nights went by; I reckon I might

say they swum by, they slid along so quiet and smooth

and lovely. Here is the way we put in the time. It was a mon-

strous big river down there — sometimes a mile and a half

wide; we run nights, and laid up and hid daytimes; soon as

night was most gone we stopped navigating and tied up —

nearly always in the dead water under a towhead; and then

cut young cottonwoods and willows, and hid the raft with

them. Then we set out the lines. Next we slid into the river

and had a swim, so as to freshen up and cool off; then we

set down on the sandy bottom where the water was about

knee deep, and watched the day- light come. Not a sound

anywheres — perfectly still — just like the whole world was

asleep, only sometimes the bullfrogs a-cluttering, maybe.

The first thing to see, looking away over the water, was a

kind of dull line — that was the woods on t’other side; you

couldn’t make nothing else out; then a pale place in the sky;

then more paleness spreading around; then the river soft-

ened up away off, and warn’t black any more, but gray; you

could see little dark spots drifting along ever so far away

— trading scows, and such things; and long black streaks

— rafts; sometimes you could hear a sweep screaking; or

jumbled up voices, it was so still, and sounds come so far;

and by and by you could see a streak on the water which you